Feast of Love & Ten of Wands, by Leah Mueller

Feast of Love

The kindness of your eyes
above your plate. So many
meals shared over nineteen years.

No one holds the divination leaves,
how many swallows remain.

Behind you, windowpanes press
against the darkening mountain.

The server knows our beverages.
Mine: always the same, 
​served in a salt-rimmed tumbler,

yours in a martini glass,
with a submerged brown cherry.

These simple hours, swallowed
in tiny sips, to make them last.

Ten of Wands

This load is heavier
than last year’s.

First you carried
one burden, 
then five, but 

before you knew, 
the weight crushed 

your narrow shoulders
into fragments, fine
but sharp as cinders.

Still, you lift the bundle,
hoist its misshapen branches
against your face.

Your eyes can’t detect
the invisible road, as
it unwinds its endless loop.

Stay the course, until
either the trail vanishes, 
or you no longer exist.

The cargo will remain
long after you are gone. 

​
Leah Mueller is an indie writer and spoken word performer from Bisbee, Arizona.  Her most recent books, Misguided Behavior, Tales of Poor Life Choices (Czykmate Press), Death and Heartbreak (Weasel Press), and Cocktails at Denny's (Alien Buddha) were released in 2019. Leah’s work appears in Midway Journal, Citron Review, The Spectacle, Miracle Monocle, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, and elsewhere. Her essay Firebrand, The Radical Life and Times of Annie Besant appears in the book, Fierce, Essays By and About Dauntless Women which placed first in the non-fiction division of the 2019 Publisher's Weekly Booklife contest. Check out her website at www.leahmueller.org